Chess960 SP488

The game I am sharing today was played in a team match called 5.1.2016, Chess 960, A friendly match Labour Day - UNRATED! Despite what it says on the name of the match, in the details of the match it stated that this indeed is a rated match. The match is played on 11 boards between MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου and Tortoise Chess Club. I am playing on board 1 for MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου. I am happy that the rest of the team are getting better results than I am and we have actually already secured the win in the match as the current score 16.5 - 3.5 in favor of MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου clearly demonstrates.

There might be a few good ways to start a game from this starting position, but I preferred 1.c4 to ensure an easy development of my bishop from the square b1. That bishop could have become a problem piece later on, had I neglected its development for some time. My opponent, FrankSimnel, responded with 1...f6, a move that seems quite horrible in my eyes. It is not, of course, a move that would lose the game for my opponent, but it does hand over the advantage to me. I continued with 2.d4 and thought that I can get my pieces easily developed. Basically I could play all the moves that I wanted to play, at least during the first few moves that is. The first move that I regretted of playing was 5.Bxg6. It was not a capture I had properly thought about. While it did double the kingside pawns, it also helped my opponent to get the rook from h8 into play and generate some pressure towards h2 alongside with the bishop on b8. Due to my poor judgement at the time, the position became even and the advantage I had before was a thing of the past. After 5...hxg6 I played 6.Qb1 in order to get my queen to a better diagonal and attack the pawn on g6. FrankSimnel replied with 6...g5 and then I realised the problem with how I had played.

The threat of 7...g4 seemed to win a pawn for my opponent no matter what I played on my 7th move. I decided to play 7.d5 and save my d-pawn as it seemed the more important pawn compared to the pawn on h2. Actually the pawn on h2 is not even under the threat because if 7...g4 8.Nd2 Rxh2 9.Rxh2 Bxh2 then 10.g3 and the bishop is trapped. I do not think that I looked far enough during the game to see that line, so I was somewhat surprised of the move 7...e6. I replied with 8.e4, so that I could take back on d5 with the e-pawn in case my opponent decided to take the pawn on d5. Finally on move 8 FrankSimnel played g4 and drove the knight away from f3. My opponent was more aware of the situation than I was and did not take on h2, but instead played 9...Bf4. I still was not paying attention and continued with 10.g3 in order to prevent my opponent taking on h2, which I now know would have been a mistake that could have lost the game for my opponent. After the bishop had retreated to g5, I had a plan of playing Rc3 followed by Ne3 in order to get my pieces into play in a way that I considered to be the best at the time. My plan was not good and the move 12.Ne3 put me in a slightly worse position. Despite of that the game continued to be played rather evenly, until my opponent blundered with 19...Rxh4 that is. I was not able to find the best reply and instead I also blundered by playing 20.Rf4. I had the opportunity to get a clear advantage, but due to my big mistake I gave that clear advantage to my opponent. On my next move I made a move that was even worse and ended up in a completely lost position. I played a few more moves, but I had to accept defeat after the move 23...Rxh4. I have added three puzzles to mate in 3 puzzles 601 - 700 page. I have also added two mate in four puzzles today. I organised the mate in 3 puzzles a bit yesterday and I will at some point do the rest of the puzzle pages as well.